Boy uses hot chocolate stand to raise ‘over $9,000’ for border wall

By Megan Menchaca mmenchaca@statesman.com

Wednesday

Feb 20, 2019 at 12:12 PMFeb 20, 2019 at 12:18 PM

A 7-year-old boy from the Austin, Texas, area has received insults from community members, including being called “little Hitler,” after starting a hot chocolate stand earlier this week to raise money for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall.

Benton Stevens wanted to contribute to the fund after attending the presidential inauguration and watching the State of the Union, his parents said. The boy’s parents, Jennifer and Shane Stevens, identify as conservatives and are both members of the Republican National Convention.

“He wanted to know about the wall so we explained what it was about and (Benton) was like ‘I want to raise money for the wall,’” Jennifer Stevens told Austin TV station KXAN.

Benton created the stand in front of a strip mall in Steiner Ranch on Saturday and made about $230 before his father decided to close the stand because of the backlash toward the store owners nearby.

“I guess some liberals – or whatever you want to call them – they were griping at the owner (of the store) and going in and yelling at him and slamming him on Facebook,” Jennifer Stevens told KXAN.

Since then, Benton has gone viral and raised “over $9,000” through selling hot chocolate and donations through Venmo, according to his father’s most recent Facebook post.

But reactions to the stand have been polarized. While the parents say the boy has remained unfazed by the negative attention, Jennifer Stevens said the whole family has been criticized in person and online. One person driving by told the family that they “didn’t like brown people,” Stevens said.

“People think he’s brainwashed,” Jennifer Stevens told KXAN. “Well, of course he supports Trump because we do, and he hears how we talk and this and that. Call that brainwashing, but I call it parenting because we instill our values in him.”

Despite the criticism, Shane Stevens said the boy plans to continue raising funds until he decides to stop. The plan is to donate the money to the federal government or the “We The People Will Build the Wall” GoFundMe, but there is no guarantee the money will go straight to funding the wall without direct Congressional approval.

“We plan to continue supporting him because we believe his stance is accurate,” Shane Stevens said in his Facebook post. “We know he’s not a racist and believe he has the right to free speech.”

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